40 
15 years, all the prices have fallen 
from 25 to 50 per cent, even for Ste- 
reotyping. — Engraving alone in all 
its branches is yet too costly, wood 
engraving more so than even in Eng- 
land, for lack of engravers. We ad- 
vise 1 00 of the wood engravers of 
England, who work at two shillings 
a day to come here. Notwithstand- 
ing, some useful and cheap works 
ornamented with wood engravings 
have been published, such are Pro* 
fessor NuttalPs Birds, and Profes- 
sor Rafinesque’s Medical Flora. 
The high duties and taxes on pa- 
per are also another evil; notwith- 
standing the fall in prices, paper 
could be imported for our periodical 
press and books from Germany, 
France and Italy at one half the ac- 
tual cost, if our duties were not pro- 
hibitory and a shameful tax on know- 
ledge. 
Our publishers who have capital, 
employ it chiefly in reprinting En- 
glish books, to avoid paying copy- 
rights. They steal English know- 
ledge, and cramp with it American 
genius. When these impediments 
will be removed we can print here 
as cheap as in France, and send the 
productions of our press all over the 
world, as the French now do theirs: 
besides improving ourselves. 
Benj. Franklin, junr. 
2. PHILOLOGY. 
(Second Letter to Mr. Champollion on the 
Graphic Systems of America, and the 
Glyphs of Otolum or Palenqjje, in 
Central America . — Elements op the 
Glyphs. 
I have the pleasure to present you 
hereto annexed, a tabular and com- 
paritive view of the Atlantic alpha- 
bets of the 2 Continents, with a spe- 
cimen of the Groups of Letters or 
Glyphs of the monuments of Otolum 
or Palenque: which belong to my 
7th series of graphic signs, and are in 
fact words formed by grouped letters 
or Elements as in Chinese Charac- 
ters^ or somewhat like the cyphers 
now yet in use among us, formed by 
acrostical anagrams or combinations 
of the first letters of words or 
names. 
When I began my investigation of 
these American Glyphs, and became 
convinced that they must have been 
groups of letters, I sought for the 
Elementary Letters in all the an- 
cient known alphabets, the Chinese 
Sanscrit and Egyptian above all; but 
in vain. The Chinese characters of- 
fered but few similarities with these 
glyphs, and not haying a literal but 
syllabic alphabet, Gbuld not promise 
the needful clue. The Sanscrit al- 
phabet and all its derived branches, 
including even the Hebrew, Pheni- 
cian, Pelagic, Celtic and Cantabrian 
alphabets were totally unlike in 
forms and combinations of grouping. 
But in the great variety of Egyp- 
tians form of the same letters, I 
thought that I could trace some 
resemblance with our American 
Glyphs. In fact I could see in 
them the Egyptian Cross, Snake, 
Circle, Delta, Square, Trident, Eye, 
Feather, Fish, Hand,&c. but sought 
in vain for the Birds, Lions, Sphynx, 
Beetle, and 100 other nameless signs 
of Egypt. 
However, this first examination 
and approximation of analogy in 
Egypt and Africa was a great pre- 
liminary step in the enquiry. I had 
always believed that the Atlantes of 
Africa have partly colonized Ameri- 
ca, as so many ancient writers have 
affirmed; this belief led me to search 
for any preserved fragments of the 
alphabets of Western Africa, and 
Lybia, the land of the African At- 
lantes yet existing under the names 
of Berbers, Tuarics, Shell uhs &c. 
This was no easy task, the Atlantic 
antiquities are still more obscure 
than the Egyptian. No ChampoUion 
had raised their veil; the city of Fa- 
rawan, the Thebes of the Atlantes, 
whose splendid ruins exist as yet 
in the Mountains of Atlas, has not 
even been described properly as yet, 
nor its inscriptions delineated. 
However I found at last in Gra- 
may(Africa Xllustrata) an old Lybian 
alphabet, which has been copied by 
Purchas in his collection of old 
alphabets. I was delighted to 
find it so explicit, sowed connected 
